The streets of Wuhan were quiet. It was only natural. The atmosphere in the Martial Alliance was unusual, and both the main headquarters and the Hubei branch were nearby.
The rumors that had once filled the streets had changed several times, then finally cut off altogether.
The rumor that the Blood Cult had infiltrated the headquarters, impersonating direct disciples of Alliance members.
The rumor that the Alliance Leader had personally gone to the Blood Cult’s stronghold and retrieved those direct disciples.
But then there was the rumor that when they tried to interrogate those direct disciples, they ran away.
It was coming up on a month since they began searching for the Tang Clan’s direct bloodline who had disappeared from headquarters, but they still had not found her, they said.
As the martial artists of headquarters, made sensitive, scoured Wuhan like combing through lice, outsiders left Wuhan for fear of becoming the object of pointless suspicion.
A martial artist of the Zhuge family, drinking in a quiet inn, looked down through the open window at the street. The flow of people had dramatically decreased.
Zhuge Hyang spoke in a voice containing a sigh.
“How long is this going to go on?”
He looked at the nephew sitting in front of him. The nephew did not answer and avoided his eyes.
Since returning from the Blood Cult’s stronghold with the Alliance Leader, the nephew had spoken less. He had once been a boy whose confidence alone was worth acknowledging, so Zhuge Hyang did not like this attitude.
He belonged to the Hubei branch. Thanks to the Clan Head’s order that he not go to headquarters and instead hold the branch, he was able to keep an eye on outside circumstances from Hubei. However, at the same time, there were limits to what he could grasp of the things happening inside headquarters.
The Clan Head had begun to keep his distance, telling him to be cautious in his attitude for a while. Frustrated, Zhuge Hyang had called out the nephew who had gone to the Blood Cult’s base with the Alliance Leader.
As he filled his nephew’s cup with wine, Zhuge Hyang asked.
“Daejeong, what on earth happened at the stronghold?”
When Zhuge Hyang asked so directly, unlike his usual self, Zhuge Daejeong flinched. He glanced around the quiet inn and answered in a low voice.
“...Nothing happened.”
“How strange. You say nothing happened, and yet in just a month you seem to have become a completely different person.”
Zhuge Daejeong silently emptied his cup.
Zhuge Hyang swallowed down his displeasure and turned his gaze aside. It was because he heard the sound of someone entering the inn. Lowering his eyes below the railing, he frowned. A familiar outfit entered his sight.
It was similar clothing to that of the Tang Clan woman who had come to the Hubei branch and turned the Medical Division upside down.
The young man did not come upstairs but took a seat on the first floor.
His face was so gaunt that Zhuge Hyang did not recognize him at first glance, but soon he realized the youth’s identity.
'I did hear that the Tang Clan Head left the Young Clan Head at headquarters and went back, but I didn’t expect him to be wandering around taverns.'
Because the Tang Clan Head’s eldest daughter had fallen under suspicion and then run away, the members of the Martial Alliance did not look kindly on the Tang Clan.
The people at headquarters were struggling the most, so it was understandable that it would be awkward for him to be in headquarters, but for the Young Clan Head of a great clan to go around taverns with his face exposed so brazenly was also not a wise attitude.
Zhuge Hyang wordlessly examined Tang Hak’s face.
Perhaps from the recent troubles, Tang Hak’s eyes had no focus. He hemmed and hawed in front of the server, unable even to order properly, then just sent him away. And with a gloomy gaze, he stared down at the table.
Seeing that heavy gaze that did not fit his age, Zhuge Hyang let out a hollow laugh.
“Why are you laughing?”
His nephew, sitting across from him, followed his uncle’s gaze downward. When he discovered Tang Hak, Zhuge Daejeong started and snapped his head up.
At that frivolous reaction, the uncle frowned.
“Why are you like that?”
“Huh? Ah, it’s nothing.”
His nephew clearly shrank, dodging the answer in a small voice. The uncle glanced back and forth between Tang Hak and his nephew.
He had heard the rumor as well. It was an absurd tale that the Tang Young Clan Head had dealt with over a hundred Blood Cultists alone at the Blood Cult’s base. However, he had no choice but to believe it. Because the origin of the rumor was the Zhuge family.
It was testimony given directly by Zhuge Cheonyu, who had accompanied the Alliance Leader, so he could not disbelieve it.
The uncle’s gaze rose back to Zhuge Daejeong.
Before his eyes was the pathetic sight of his nephew hunched up as small as he could.
In the martial world, it could not be helped that rank was decided by martial merit. It was not wise to show reckless bravado toward someone stronger than oneself. However, a martial artist of the Zhuge family had no need to show such an attitude toward a martial artist of the Tang Clan.
It was not because of pride between families. It was because of the alliance.
Zhuge Hyang refilled his nephew’s cup.
“Come to think of it, I heard that when the Alliance Leader went to the Blood Cult’s stronghold, all of the Tang Clan martial artists accompanied him. They said the Tang Young Clan Head held the gorge alone against the Blood Cultists and was gravely injured, but seeing him in person, he looks just fine.”
“...”
“They said he faced nearly a hundred opponents. Was that an exaggeration? Rumors like that become a headwind the moment your true skill is revealed. Honor gained at a young age becomes a shackle.”
Thinking his nephew’s spirit had been crushed, he deliberately belittled Tang Hak, but instead of being comforted, Zhuge Daejeong grew only more anxious, unable to know what to do.
His spirit was not merely crushed; it was as if it had already died.
Zhuge Hyang found his nephew pathetic.
To hope there is no one stronger than oneself in the world is greed. You had to learn an attitude that matched reality.
If he had faced some black-path bastard with no tomorrow, avoiding him might not have been a bad way to act. But there was no need to do that in front of the Sichuan Tang Clan. The Sichuan Tang Clan and the Zhuge family were both among the Five Great Families and members of the Martial Alliance. As sects bound twice over by alliance, even if trouble arose between them, there were limits to how much force they could use. All sorts of complicated circumstances would follow, making the cleanup afterward exhausting.
Clicking his tongue inwardly at the sight of his nephew, who had not only lost his fighting spirit but already flipped himself belly up, Zhuge Hyang thought to himself.
'I should use this chance to teach him how to handle himself.'
There was no need to go so pale and take such a low posture.
Seeing that the boy who had once been the boldest and most overbearing was now frozen like that, it was easy to imagine how the other children would be.
Worried that the Zhuge family’s younger generation’s attitude would harden like this, Zhuge Hyang quietly emptied his cup and rose from his seat.
“Uncle? W-where are you going?”
“Haven’t we finished drinking? Let’s move.”
“Right now?”
Zhuge Hyang looked at his nephew with cold eyes. Zhuge Daejeong was not so dense that he could not read the mood, so he rose to his feet at once.
He carefully went down the stairs, hoping desperately that they would not run into Tang Hak, when Zhuge Hyang stopped.
And before his nephew could stop him, Zhuge Hyang turned his steps and walked over to where Tang Hak was sitting.
“Are you not the Tang Young Clan Head?”
Tang Hak, who had been staring blankly, lifted his gaze.
With a look of puzzlement, he asked,
“Who are you?”
“I am Zhuge Hyang of the Hubei branch. I once received Binggeukjicho from your elder sister.”
Narrowing his eyes in a gentle smile, Zhuge Hyang spoke warmly. At the mention of his sister, Tang Hak immediately dropped his guard.
“Ah, so that was you. Did you come here to eat?”
Perhaps intending to invite them to join him, Tang Hak half rose and looked behind Zhuge Hyang. At that, Zhuge Daejeong, standing behind his uncle, flinched hard.
Tang Hak recognized him as well. But before he could greet him, Zhuge Hyang cut in.
“No. I was just on my way out after having a meal with my nephew for the first time in a while.”
“I see.”
In that case, there was nothing in particular to say.
But though Zhuge Hyang spoke as if he were about to leave, he remained standing there.
“Do you perhaps have something you wish to say?”
“You must be having a hard time of it.”
Tang Hak was not a particularly perceptive person, so he did not understand Zhuge Hyang’s words right away. In a voice heavy with pity, Zhuge Hyang continued.
“It seems the Tang Clan Head was quite worried about your elder sister, leaving you behind at headquarters like that. How hard must it be for you, unable to even go home?”
“It is not hard.”
“How could it not be? How much must headquarters be watching the Tang Clan with narrowed eyes?”
“They have not particularly given us narrowed eyes...”
“There’s no need for you to say it. I understand everything. No matter how much those direct disciples under watch are suspected of being spies, interrogating them is the authority of headquarters. It is not something other sects should be demanding so brazenly. I too think headquarters overstepped.”
Tang Hak closed his mouth.
'A spy?'
Even he, dull as he was, understood that Zhuge Hyang was insulting his sister.
Tang Hak answered coldly.
“My elder sister is not a spy.”
“Is it not a fact that she is connected to the Blood Cult? They still have not been able to discover why she was kidnapped and taken to the Blood Cult’s stronghold.”
Tang Hak fell silent. Now that his characteristic dull air had vanished, his face felt sharp.
Zhuge Daejeong wanted to stop his uncle. But the uncle paid it no mind and continued to provoke the Young Clan Head.
“It is coming up on a month, and even the Martial Alliance has failed to track her. That makes one wonder whether the Tang Young Lady might not have gone to the Blood Cult’s stronghold of her own will from the start. And if she has no sense of injustice, why would she have run away the day before the interrogation?”
Zhuge Hyang casually patted Tang Hak’s shoulder.
“The Clan Head must be agonizing as well. With everyone tying the Tang Clan together with the Blood Cult, he must be hoping you will handle things well so that strange rumors do not spread.”
“Who is tying the Tang Clan together with the Blood Cult?”
“Isn’t everyone thinking that way?”
“I have never heard anyone say such a thing.”
“Haha, who would say such things openly to your face?”
“You are right now telling me to my face that the Tang Clan and the Blood Cult are connected, are you not?”
“I am merely mustering up the courage to tell you out of concern.”
“Since you have spoken frankly to my face, I will answer as well. The Tang Clan has no connection whatsoever with the Blood Cult, and my elder sister is someone who has absolutely nothing to do with the Blood Cult.”
A strange smile appeared on Zhuge Hyang’s face.
In a low voice, he asked,
“Are you sure?”
When Tang Hak, choked with anger, tried to say something, Zhuge Hyang cut him off first in a cold voice.
“On the day your elder sister visited, a fire broke out at the Hubei branch, and because of it, something that had been hidden in a hall was discovered.”
Tang Hak frowned. He had no idea what he was trying to say.
The other patrons in the inn quietly focused on the conversation between the two members of Great Families.
Sensing that—or perhaps having intended it from the start—Zhuge Hyang held the silence for a moment, drawing every eye.
“Because everything was transferred to headquarters, I could not find out anything about that item, but I heard something strange from someone working at headquarters. They said the item was related to the Blood Cult, and that Sagye Hall is investigating the route by which it entered Hubei.”
“...”
“When coincidences repeat like this, it becomes difficult to dismiss them as coincidences any longer, does it not?”
Zhuge Hyang’s voice pressed down on the silence.
“Do you really think the Tang Young Lady has no connection to the Blood Cult?”
